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Here is teaser #3 for my story, Psychological Demons. I am introducing the relationship between Eve and her mother, Cynthia, as Eve visits her mom for the first time since she left for the military. Not all is what it seems on the surface.

Cynthia Torseman only had a couple skills for work, waitressing and bartending, while raising Eve after the divorce with Joe. The divorce resulted in a hardship for Cynthia, as she was used to being a stay-at-home mom, now had to manage herself when Joe moved out. Cynthia and Joe only lived a couple blocks away from one another for Eve’s benefits and relationships with both parents, but that didn’t change the fact that Eve wasn’t raised on a silver-platter. She developed an appreciation of her mother, as Cynthia worked more than 40 hours a week to make ends meet. There was no need for court dates between the parents, which was rare for a broken home in the United States.

As she came to age, Eve enlisted in the military to assist her mother with her bills. Eve would send an anonymous envelope with money, while she was away for training or missions, no matter where she was in the world. As Eve returned home for the first time in two years, Cynthia would discover a change.

Cynthia walks to her mailbox to get her mail. She opens it and grabs the stack in the box. Cynthia skims through the mail and notice an envelope is missing from the stack. She looks down the street on her right and then left as she pats the stack of mail on her chest. Her facial expression expressed a concern. Did the mailman drop the envelope? Did the envelope get lost on its way home? Cynthia slowly bit her lip out of nervousness and double-checked the stack again to make sure she didn’t misplace the envelope herself. The middle-aged lady takes another look around the area and turns around to walk back into her house.

Two blocks away from both her mother and father’s houses, Eve was waiting in a taxi cab parked. Inside the taxi, the driver looks through his rear view mirror to his passenger who is smirking and flipping the envelope over and over in her hands.

“Ma’am, I know it’s none of my business, but isn’t it illegal to be digging and stealing other people’s mail?”

The taxi-driver expressed his concerns towards Eve. In response, Eve smiles and continues the conversation with the driver.

“Not if you are the person who sent it.”

Eve flips the front of the envelope with the addresses facing the driver and leans forward. She grabs her bills out of her back pocket and hands forty dollars out of the money stack to the taxi driver.

“For caring, lunch is on me. Keep the change, buddy.”

The taxi-driver responds with a relieved laugh, “Thank you, Ma’am.”

Eve kicks open the back passenger door and grabs her duffel bag from across the seat. She shuts the door and walks across the street and up to the front door of her mother’s house. Eve puts down her duffel bag. The duffel bag is weathered and the color is faded from the use Eve has put into it. She claims it’s her lucky bag, as “lucky” is stitched across the pocket on the side, symmetrically across the pocket. The doorbell rings.

Cynthia yells from inside the house, “Coming!”

Cynthia opens the door while still skimming the mail. Before Cynthia can look up to see who the visitor is. Eve sets the envelope in front of her mother’s face.